NASL leader likes model for Scorpions

SPORTS; SOC SCORPIONS JERSEYS JMS; 06/02/11; Mexican soccer superstar Jorge Campos, from the left, shakes hands with NASL Scorpions team owner Gordon Hartman and NASL commissioner David Downs after Campos unveiled the new team jersey at a press conference, Thursday evening, June 2, 2011, at the Hyatt Regency in San Antonio. ( Photo by J. Michael Short / SPECIAL )

Shortly after the North American Soccer League extended David Downs' deal as commissioner for another two seasons, through 2013, he arrived in town last month to attend the groundbreaking for the San Antonio Scorpions' planned stadium.

Downs spoke recently with Express-News staff writer Richard Oliver about the health of the league and the addition of the Scorpions to the schedule, beginning April 7.

After last year's back and forth with U.S. Soccer over sanctioning of the NASL, the league recently received a full sanction for second division soccer this year. How is the health of the league currently?

One of the most important things is our stability at this point. We're returning all but one team, and the one team is being promoted to the MLS, so you can't exactly fault us for that. San Antonio, we feel, is going to be an incredible replacement for them.

We announced a team in Canada (Ottawa) already, and we've signed another team to a deal and haven't quite announced them yet. I'm in discussion with over a dozen teams right now about potentially joining the league. I think you're going to see us prudently making the right choices along the way, expanding fairly significantly over the course of the next 5-10 years up to about 20 teams. I think we're here for a long time to stay.

How important is it to have San Antonio join the NASL?

San Antonio is a top 25 city in the United States, a very significant market, a great mix of Hispanic and non-Hispanic. There's obviously pent-up passion for the sport. We think it's a fantastic market.

While our league is truly international — I know, since I've flown from San Juan to Edmonton — nonetheless, I think we're probably a little heavily concentrated in the Southeast. We'd love to push westward, and this is one of the first and most important steps in that.

What are your thoughts about the unique business model that Scorpions owner Gordon Hartman is introducing, to use profits to support Morgan's Wonderland park for special-needs individuals?

He's already shown in an incredibly short time how the Scorpions business model is working. If you do the things right, you can make the model work in our league, and I think that's going to be an inspiration to a lot of other cities, a lot of other potential ownership groups to give this a shot. We couldn't be more thrilled.

The teams playing at Heroes Stadium this season will have to deal with a tight playing surface that isn't regulation-sized. How will the NASL handle that situation until the Scorpions' planned stadium is constructed?

We're in discussion with the team right now to do the best we can. We've already gotten a waiver from U.S. Soccer to play on a field that isn't going to be up to World Cup standards, we know that. But we're going to do our best to ensure that the play on the field is not unfairly tilted one way or another because of the result of the conditions.

We had a field last year in Edmonton that was a little less than perfect. This will be, for one year, a little less than perfect without a doubt. When you see what's being planned, I think we can manage to get through one season.